This episode is a penultimate episode on our “pod” of eleven. These kinds of episodes are always tricky because they are all about set up without complete resolution. Episode 11 will be (and always was designed to be the end of a chapter.) Season one, as we all know, had a 23 chapter “VOLUME,” as it were. But Tim Kring had come into this season specifically wanting to design smaller volumes. We knew well in advance how many episodes we’d run before our first break of re-runs and pre-emptions. After the eleventh episode on December 3rd, we’d take a break. This year, Tim wanted to resolve the story more completely at this first break than we had last year, and begin VOLUME 3 in the Spring. Well before the writers strike was a serious issue, we had always planned on ending VOLUME 2 next week. It is true that, on the eve of the strike, as it was becoming an inevitability, Tim did some quick rewrites on episode 11, so that it would be even more resolved and complete if, God forbid, the strike goes on so long that there is no more of season 2 than the first eleven. If that happens 11 will be a de-facto season finale and can function as such. But if the strike is resolved relatively soon, we will most certainly come back and present VOLUME 3.

I am glad that Beeman explained that because I was fearful that if the strike ended soon we would be without a new Heroes episode until the fall, now I know it could be back sooner than that.